


Threadbare

by aesc, Siria



Series: Nantucket AU [70]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-11-23
Updated: 2007-11-23
Packaged: 2017-10-03 19:55:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aesc/pseuds/aesc, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So, John has this hoodie. It's an indeterminate dark grey, and soft; he's had it for so many years that it's losing its shape, sagging, and it's a little ragged at the edges from being washed so much. Little bit threadbare, too, and there's a hole in one elbow, but John knows it for what it is—a comfort thing—and he wears it regardless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Threadbare

So, John has this hoodie. It's an indeterminate dark grey, and soft; he's had it for so many years that it's losing its shape, sagging, and it's a little ragged at the edges from being washed so much. Little bit threadbare, too, and there's a hole in one elbow, but John knows it for what it is—a comfort thing—and he wears it regardless.

Rodney's taken to wearing it lately.

John comes home on Monday to find him wearing it, sacked out on the couch, Planck snoozing on his chest and his nose buried in the hood. There's an empty pizza box on the coffee table and a blizzard of papers spread all over that and the floor, some of them spotted with grease stains—a sure sign of Rodney on a roll with something—and John sighs, because _great_, Rodney's going to be zoned out for days _and_ cat hair. He wakes Rodney up to say so— "more cat fur in _my_ hair", he complains—but Rodney just blinks up at him and shrugs and tells him to get over it. He's strangely quiet for the rest of the day.

The hoodie's great virtue is that it's warm—the reason John bought it all those years ago when he was still living in Boston—and it's light enough to wear jogging on the mornings when his breath starts to frost the air. Like today; he pulls the hood up and runs into the grey light just beginning to divide air from water, and every time he breathes in he smells salt water and Rodney at the back of his throat.

Mornings come late and reluctant in the fall, Thursday mornings especially so for some reason; so when John gets back from running he sometimes finds Rodney opening up his laptop, or playing the piano (still kind of freaked when John listens), or milling around and muttering about the thousands of things he needs to do. It's the piano this morning, Rodney scowling ferociously at the keys, and elated, electric, John pauses, bends to kiss him.

Rodney grumbles about ick, gross, sweat, but he tilts his head up to nose at John's neck and breathe in the damp air between the hood and John's skin, twists to wrap both arms around John, hands worming their way under the layers of warm cotton to find warmer skin; and with his face buried in John's neck, where the hood drapes loosely, it's like it's covering both of them.

John kind of lifts an eyebrow as Rodney noses at his neck, and licks and nips, and can't stop a laugh when Rodney mumbles, "You smell good... in a really, really terrible way."

"A really, really terrible way?"

"Mmpfh. You know. Sweat. Dog. Thing."

"Thing."

"Mmm."

"I smell like _thing_?"

"Yeah," Rodney says, pushing John's head to the side so he can work underneath his jaw. "Really good... thing."

"Oh," John says dryly, tilting his head back just enough, offering up his throat, shivering just a little at the scrape of Rodney's stubble against his skin, "Well, as long as it's a _good_ thing."

"Mmmmph," Rodney says again, his fingers playing strange, exciting scales down John's spine. "It is. Good thing. Yes."

John hums low in the back of his throat, a song drawn out of him by Rodney's insistent, careful touch, the two of them holding one another in their living room, washed with early morning sunlight. They stay like that for a while, almost drowsing, John thrumming happily with adrenaline and simple touch.

Cash clamors at the door to be let in, and the ferry calls off in the distance.

John stirs a little at that, says "I should—" and Rodney shifts against him, huffs a little sigh against the damp skin of John's neck and says "Mmm, I have to—", but neither of them move away, not just yet.

When they _do_ move, it's slowly, John ambling into a kitchen disordered with coffee cups and everyday; when he looks back through the door to the living room he sees Rodney shut the top of the piano, fingers careful on the wood.

John smiles at him, one hand poised on the door, ready to let in the morning breeze and a whirlwind of dog. Rodney looks up at him for a moment, and John thinks that the look on his face is curiously solemn—serious, like he's looking at something delicate—and then his mouth crooks up in that lopsided, familiar grin and he's moving over to the desk, shuffling papers together and hunting through journals for articles and asking what John's going to cook for dinner, though it's not yet eight o' clock.

When John points this out, that there are in fact at least six or seven hours before he needs to think about dinner—and since when is he cooking, anyway?—Rodney huffs and says, "Yes, well, it's never too soon to think about these things. Like... like building a fall-out shelter or writing your will or checking for melanoma."

John tilts his head while he opens the door to let in a flash of black fur that dives quickly for the food bowl. "Wait," he says half-jokingly, "melanoma? Is that why you were looking at my shoulder blade the other night?"

"No." Rodney stares fixedly at one of his many journals, one of his already-read ones. "Please try harder not to be stupid." His voice is too tight.

"I told you," John says blandly, stooping to give Cash some more fresh water and scritching behind his ears. "It's just a freckle, I've had it for years, it's nothing." He knows that that's not what Rodney's talking about, and he's damned if he's not going to try his best to find out what is going on inside that overly active brain, one way or another.

"But you don't know that!" Rodney abandons the journal in favor of staring at his laptop, his hands, looking at anything but John. "For all you know, the cancer cells could be in there, just _waiting_ for their chance to kill you horribly. Like that woman who keeps trying to give us lemon bars whenever she sees us. Or... or space aliens."

"She's trying to give us space aliens?" John says, wrinkling his brow in feigned confusion. It's the kind of playing dumb that he perfected on his commanding officers; he doesn't use it on Rodney much, but John finds it kind of useful at times like this. There's nothing like being faced with stupidity and obtuseness to make Rodney say what he thinks, or doesn't know he's thinking.

"No!" Rodney glares up at him. "Right this minute, aliens could be... That's not the point. The point _is_, it's..." His hands search the air for words that won't come; he drops them to his lap with a huff of frustration and his shoulders collapse in a way that kind of hurts to see. "It's, I guess it's that I don't want something to happen to you that I could... stop, because you never pay attention."

"Hey." John crosses back through into the living room, back over to Rodney, and rubs one hand down the tense line of Rodney's back, over the tight curve of his shoulders. He doesn't know how much of this is Rodney and the stress of half a dozen deadlines; how much of it is caused by him; or even how much of it is the echoes of Sam's mom, gone and grieved for nearly two months now, echoes made louder by a phone call two weeks ago to tell Rodney that a former boss—_friend, really; I'd call Elizabeth a friend_, he'd told John stiffly—was sick.

"Hey," John repeats, a little awkwardly, "You've got me, remember? You look out for me. And I've got you. It's a... thing."

"Good thing," Rodney mumbles, smile thin and uncertain, and can't quite look at John.

"A _good_ thing," John says, voice as firm as he can make it. He leans forward and presses a kiss to the crown of Rodney's head, where the hair is soft and baby-fine, the curve of skull delicate. "Mutual."

"Yeah." Rodney's shoulders loosen under John's arm and his smile slides hesitantly toward reality, but the hand on John's back traces up to the tiny fleck of skin he wonders over at night.

"Freckle, Rodney," John says, eyes drifting closed, pressing closer to Rodney. "Not raised, no pain, no discoloration, no bleeding, no change in size. You told me that yourself, remember? I'm okay. I'll _be_ okay. And I know I'll have you around to snap at me if I'm not."

"Unless the lemon-bar woman gets me first," Rodney says darkly, fingers still restless but smoothing out a little into something not seeking reassurance. "I hope you're keeping an eye on her."

"I'll take her down, Rodney," John says, voice even and calm. He drops another kiss on Rodney's head, rough and quick against his temple, then pulls back. "I'm gonna go take a shower," he says, knowing he must be fairly sweaty after that run, and knowing he has to be in to the office to take care of some paperwork by twelve. He peels off the hoodie and hands it to Rodney as he turns to run up the stairs.

"Don't, um... don't slip?" Rodney calls up after him, and when John turns to say "I won't," he sees Rodney standing there in the wash of living room light, hands wrapped up in soft, sweaty cotton and pressed close to his body.

And he pads his way up the rest of the stairs, strips and lets the warm water wash over him, drowning out Rodney's voice when he yells up something from below about sandwiches, or maybe just about the sand that John knows he must have tracked in with him. "Yeah," John calls back, "whatever you say, Rodney," ducking his head back under the spray and thinking idle thoughts of cotton-warmth, soft enough to hold them both.


End file.
